


Turning Back

by red_at_three (elle_stone)



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Community: st_xi_kink, Ex Lovers, M/M, Missing Scene, Rare Pairing?, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2012-06-02
Packaged: 2017-11-06 16:45:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/421074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_stone/pseuds/red_at_three
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're the one who came walking back into this bar knowing I'd be here.  You're the one who didn't want to leave Iowa without one...final..."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turning Back

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2010 for a prompt on the st_xi_kink meme: "The real reason Cupcake picked the fight in the bar? Kirk was actually his ex and they had a really messy breakup when he joined starfleet. Make of this what you will."

The bar’s all cleared out now—even Pike gone—but Jay’ll let him stay as long as he wants. He pretends the pizza slicer is a spaceship. He twirls it between his fingers.

It's not that he’s never thought about space. About going into space. Sometimes he thinks of it as going back home.

A door opens and then slams shut again behind him.

“Bar's closed, buddy.”

“Yeah, then why are you still here?”

Jim knows that voice, knows it better than he’d like to admit. And he knows that this man isn’t as angry as he sounds. He shrugs, still not bothering to turn—not wanting to give him the pleasure of looking like he cares enough to turn.

“Got an arrangement with the bartender.”

“Huh. Yeah,” the other man scoffs, and wanders over so he's standing across the table facing Jim. “I bet you do.”

Jim tilts his head and squints his eyes a little, like he's thinking hard. “Now, are you calling me a drunk or a whore?” 

Then he kicks out the empty chair across from him with his foot.

The other man sits down. “Take your pick.”

Jim shrugs again in answer. Then he slides his half empty bottle over, watches as his new partner in conversation takes a drink. 

“Whore,” he says, after a long pause. “I pick whore.”

“Should have guessed.” 

“Not like it ever bothered you before.”

No answer to that one but an uncomfortable silence, but he's not surprised. He’s broken the rule. He’s admitted they have a past.

He pulls the bottle back to his side of the table and takes a drink. He’s a bloody mess, face cut up and bruised, aching all over, feels and looks like shit. And he's sitting across from the last person he'd ever want to see him like this. And he can't be bothered to care about any of it.

“Thought you were ‘never coming back to Riverside,’” he says finally. He tries his best impersonation for the last five words, but he doesn’t earn any laughs.

The other looks up briefly. “I go where Starfleet asks me.”

“What loyalty,” Jim smirks.

He's sure the man wants to say something—wants to argue about loyalty, about opportunity, about escape. Ambition. Pride. But all he does is open his mouth and then shut it again. He reaches for the bottle but Jim keeps it out of his reach. The other man slouches back in his seat. Jim taps his thumb against the glass. He flicks out his tongue to lick at a bit of blood pooling on his cut lip.

“I honestly never thought I'd see you again, Matthew,” he says. It’s more like a whisper. His voice sounds choked, uneven—not like he’s about to cry, not like that, he’s far from tears, but like he’s thirsty maybe, or as if he’s just woken from a long sleep.

He looks up properly and sees that Matthew is staring straight at him. He remembers that gaze. First time they met, right here, tough looking thug of a man at the end of the bar giving that gaze right and steady, and he knew who he was going home with that night. Didn’t expect it to last more than a night. Somehow it did. Six months felt like some kind of amazing record back then. Now it seems like a surreal miracle, maybe a dream.

“We probably should have kept it that way,” Matthew says. 

He’s still staring.

“Probably,” Jim agrees. He pushes his chair back and pulls himself up wearily, as if this took real effort, allowing himself a long sigh. He finishes the last of the bottle—knows Matthew's watching his every movement, his fingers around the glass, the muscles of his arm, how his shirt rides up as he tips the bottle all the way back. 

He sets the bottle down with a clink. Waits until he's standing at Matthew's side and has clapped one hand on his shoulder and put his mouth right up close against his ear before he speaks again. “But you're the one who came walking back into this bar knowing I’d be here,” he whispers. “You're the one who didn’t want to leave Iowa without one...final...”

He knows Matthew has closed his eyes, feeling Jim's breath against his skin.

When he leaves the bar he knows he won't have to wait long.

Matthew meets him outside, where he's standing just out of reach of the streetlight, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and pretending he's not waiting.

Matthew pins his shoulders back against the wall before he kisses him. It's rough and messy, desperate and unsatisfying. A kiss between two people who don't love each other anymore, who maybe never did.

He pulls back. Bites his lip. Watches Jim's face like he's waiting. His gaze is steady, but Jim's eyes flit back and forth. He reaches out and pulls Matthew close against him by the fabric of that stupid red Starfleet uniform, right close up as if he really wanted him still.

“What were you expecting, huh?” Jim whispers. “When you came back? This? Maybe a rough fuck in my ugly old shithole of an apartment? Is that what you want?”

Matthew's staring now at Jim's still bleeding lip. Jim wonders if he can taste that same blood on his own mouth.

“I don't know what I want,” he answers. He sounds almost sad.

Jim feels it too, that sadness.

But all he says is, “That's what I thought,” and slips out underneath Matthew's arm.

“See you later, Cupcake,” he calls out as he leaves, and he tries to make his voice as cruel as he can, and he doesn't look back, not even once. It's practice. When that shuttle takes off he won't be doing any turning back, either.  



End file.
